Empires rise and fall, trends come and go – and still The Rose of Tralee (RTÉ One, Monday, 8pm) rumbles on. This summer marks the 63rd year of the contest that Father Ted famously parodied as the Lovely Girls Competition, and there is no indication that it’s running out of steam. If anything The Rose of Tralee springs into 2024 in renewed fettle, with Kathryn Thomas returning for a second year as Dáithí Ó Sé’s cohost.
It’s straight into the action. First up the Dubai Rose, Ciara O’Sullivan, a teacher and GAA player, shares a photograph of herself in football kit, jumping in the desert, and plays a tune on the harp.
Then it’s the Waterford Rose, Abby Walsh, a newly qualified community pharmacist, who talks about the challenges and joy of studying through Irish, from primary school all the way to third level. She is followed by the North Carolina Rose, Kathryn Wright, who reveals that her idol is Dolly Parton and then asks Thomas to participate in a card trick. (Thomas wonders how Ó Sé got off so lightly and gets to mooch in the wings.)
Card tricks, harp-playing, the bagpipes – the party piece of the San Francisco Rose, Maggie Baglin – are part of a comparatively recent tradition of participants showing off a skill. The message is that The Rose of Tralee is no mere pageant and that critiquing it as past its sell-by date is unfair on contestants who have travelled around the world to be in Tralee and honour their Irish heritage.
There are some deeply moving moments. The Melbourne Rose, Dervla Dolan, who is originally from Omagh, in Co Tyrone, talks about the death 10 years ago of her 18-year-old brother, Enda, who was killed by a drunk driver, and about the foundation established in his name. “We faced unimaginable pain ... His life was taken so soon and was so short. What we wanted to do was keep his legacy going.”
There’s also an emotional interview with the Monaghan Rose, Anne-Marie McArdle, who reveals that she was initially encouraged to enter by her late mother. “She’d be thinking, ‘You’re up there with Dáithí Ó Sé!’” she says. Later the Galway Rose, Deirdre Jennings, talks about the death of her father while she was studying for her Leaving Cert and about her mental-health journey.
The rugby star Shane Byrne is in the house – not to show off his mullet but to applaud his daughter, the Wicklow Rose, Kerry Byrne, who says the other Roses are her “besties and her sisters”.
Speaking of mullets, there’s a hair-raising moment as the Ohio Rose, Aoife Zuercher, performs an Irish dance to the tune of Hang on Sloopy, by The McCoys – followed by line dancing courtesy of the Louth Rose, Justine McGuirk; a rowing-machine demonstration by Leitrim’s Shauna Murtagh; and a sign-language interpretation of Ed Sheeran’s Perfect by the Kerry Rose, Emer Dineen.
There is certainly nothing else like it on TV, although there are as many troughs as peaks across an often dull evening, and the chemistry between Ó Sé and Thomas is a work in progress. There’s the occasional toe-curling bit, too, such as when Thomas and Ó Sé attempt to lead a singalong of The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), as parped out on the bagpipes by the San Fransisco Rose.
Still, cringe o’clock strikes only once or twice. Elsewhere, the crowd applauds, Ó Sé winks at the camera, and on social media hundreds of viewers weigh in (mostly with Father Ted references – or jokes about all the Father Ted references). It’s a reminder that, quaint or embarrassing, old fashioned or progressive, The Rose of Tralee isn’t going anywhere.
